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Show llROOKK-KAUTZ. Like Banquo's ghost the squabble between be-tween General Brooke and Colonel Kautz will not down, and the war department de-partment seems to be puzzled how to dispose of the matter without further scaudal, its latest proposition being to replace General Brooke with General MoCook in command of this military department. That of course would separate tho two belllgorenl officers, but it would at tho same time appear like a rebuke to tho general. In itself the diftlouity is so trivial as to really merit little of the attention given it by the press and public In civil life a charge of that kind would be dismissed in fire minutes. Even in congress mombers and senators every day insinuate that their fellows prevaricate prevari-cate and nothing more is said about it. The true reason why the Brooke-Kautz affair elicits so muoh comment is that it reveals the whole rotten state of our military service. It is the system and not the incident that concerns the public. pub-lic. Probably in no other service exists there so much jealousy and enmity as in the army. Young men full of spirit aud ambition become second nontenants. nonten-ants. In any other vocation they might perhaps forge rapidly to the front, while in the army at the end of a life time they are still nothing but potty company com-pany oilicers, aud it sours their disposition disposi-tion and kills their ambition. Now and then a staff appointment is to be made and then some favorite instead of the most worthy is selected, and the slurred becomo embittered and indifferent. It is so, too, with the appointmout of general gen-eral officers who alone are exempt from the rule of seuiority. And we imagine it is something of this sort rather than tho mild reproof offered and resented that precipitated the trouble between Brooke and Kautz. If the outcome should prove to be the appointment of a new department com-mauder, com-mauder, The Times hopes ho will be a broad gauged man whose policy with regard to Fort Douglass will be liberal and foresightod. |